One of the things that really irritates me is the way in which the rights of ordinary citizens are sometimes brushed aside by people who wield power, authority or dominance over their more ordinary counterparts in the country as well as by those who are downright selfish. Often, it is coming to a point where the ordinary citizen feels impotent when his/her rights are flouted to his/her detriment.

Let me start with the building industry. Yes, it is positive to note that there are many building projects around the Maltese islands as these generate employment but are we not exaggerating now? Whole parts of Malta have are dominated by towering cranes, acres of dust and continuous noise. Furthermore, the flow of traffic is often hampered by such projects. This goes on from dawn to dusk. To add insult to injury, it is also becoming very common to have couples building their residential homes to arrange for works to be carried out during the whole weekend.

For some citizens, Sunday is no longer a day of rest but a day when workers start creating a crescendo of noise as soon as day breaks and have this racket go on right up to sunset, if not even later. Some time ago, a leading entrepreneur wrote in The Sunday Times about the fact that, after six days of hard work, she cannot even be allowed to rest on Sunday because of work being carried out next to her residence. She also complained about the futility of reporting such occurrences.

Some people will retort by stating that this is the price the citizen has to pay for progress, for a thriving economy. The protection of jobs in the building industry has to come first, they will argue. What do you expect? Should construction work be stopped at certain times and on certain days because a citizen wants to rest?

In this manner, the rights of the sick, old people, the exhausted worker seeking rest, etc., are consigned to oblivion on the basis of flawed arguments. Progress is really regress when the quality of life of many citizens declines due to the price of such "progress".

Now, I would like to turn to another area where the rights of the ordinary citizen have to be better protected: interaction with uniformed personnel. In my opinion, a lot still needs to be done in this area. Members of the armed forces, the police force and local wardens have to understand, once and for all, that they are there to assist the public and to protect the ordinary citizen. Their role should certainly exclude using their uniform as an excuse to take an overbearing attitude when dealing with the citizen in everyday life.

Some uniformed personnel are a credit to the service they form part of. I recently called at the Birkirkara police station and was impressed by the polite and efficient manner in which I was helped by a policewoman on duty at the time. However, there are a number of uniformed personnel who are abrupt in their manner of dealing with citizens, sometimes even downright arrogant and rude. Swearing is also very common among such personnel who should be the first to set a good example and not the opposite.

Are uniformed personnel being given enough training in how to deal with the public? Above all, are trainers inculcating in them the fact that wearing a uniform means dedicating one's life to the service of ordinary citizens? Sometimes, I get the impression that some people get carried away by the fact that they are wearing a uniform and view civilians as people who owe them respect due to their position of authority without realising, however, that the opposite also holds true. I would like to conclude by dealing with the government's treatment of ordinary citizens. I am referring to any future Maltese government and not just the present one. Here, of course, I am in the land of dreams.

I dream of a day when the government will respect and value the different political opinions of individual citizens in all the decisions it makes and concentrate on the national interest and the fact that we are all Maltese. I dream of a day when being strong with weak citizens and weak with powerful citizens will be a thing of the past. I dream of a day when the information disseminated by the government will respect the intelligence of the ordinary citizen and will not be aimed at partisan political advantage but, rather, the national interest. I dream of a time when there will really be no emarginated citizens in our society due to the different colour of their skins, different beliefs, different sexual orientations, etc.

The rights of ordinary citizens should always remain high on the national agenda. When such rights are trampled upon, then there is something wrong with our country.